Why aren't there Easter romance movies?

[SpoilerVirgin]

@Andy_L

Easter Parade is an Easter romance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Parade_(film) - it starts with the hero meeting the girl on Easter and by the next Easter, they are in love.

I watched Easter Parade yesterday, as I do every Easter. The original tagline for the movie was “The Happiest Musical Ever Made,” and I think it lives up to the promotion. I’m pretty sure the worst thing that happens is a rainstorm - oh, and Peter Lawford gets a parking ticket.

There is zero mention of the Christian Easter holiday, but Fred Astaire does get to con a little boy out of a stuffed rabbit.

[ISiddiqui]

@Driver8

I think it is largely this. Christmas movies and references in the culture are often extremely secular. It seems like Christmas movies are more likely to reference Santa Claus than Jesus Christ and the Christmas plot device is more going to center around the family get together more than the “holy” aspects of the holiday.

Easter is still a more Christian tradition, with less traveling for it. It doesn’t have as much of a cross-religion or secular appeal. It stands to reason that the entertainment industry, which is probably more secular than Americans on average, doesn’t tend to produce Easter themed content. I suspect on average it is more likely to be outside their comfort zone and experience.

Not to mention Easter moves around the calendar (and not in the first Sunday in February sort of way), while Christmas is always Dec 25. That has to affect marketing as well.

[naita]

This might be a bit of a chicken and the egg thing, but how often do people do something romantic together for Easter? They do all the time around Christmas, and you can put that in the romantic movie.

[robardin]

@Driver8

Easter is still a more Christian tradition, with less traveling for it. It doesn’t have as much of a cross-religion or secular appeal. It stands to reason that the entertainment industry, which is probably more secular than Americans on average, doesn’t tend to produce Easter themed content. I suspect on average it is more likely to be outside their comfort zone and experience.

Well, the OP is asking about “romance movies” which by nature would not usually be religious. What would it even mean to be “Easter themed” and “religious rather than secular”, when the religious meaning of Easter is literally the center of the faith, and it’s not a holiday associated with jolly get-together vibes?

“Easter Parade” is the only example I can think of, and of course that’s centered not on remembering Christ’s sacrifice and triumphant overcoming of death itself, but whose Easter reference derives from… Women wearing hats on Fifth Avenue in the early 20th Century. And was basically in the movie just to use a popular song of the same name, that was written by a Jew.

The only “Easter” movies I can think of that aren’t cartoon-bunny-related but religiously centered would be The Greatest Story Ever Told, or Ben Hur, or The Life of Brian, the last of which I guess had a romantic subplot in it.

[Yorkshire_Pudding]

Interesting to read about about the idea that Christmas and Easter were somehow Christian in origin, but are becoming less so. Surely both are older ideas than Christianity? Even the name of Easter references pagan celebrations of spring and rebirth! Christmas…OK, that obviously is a Christian name, but that’s something that the midwinter festivals of numerous cultures have had appended to them along the way.

And that sort of helps with the idea of why Christmas is better romance-fodder. People everywhere have Winter festivals: “it’s cold and dark, let’s do joyful things to cheer ourselves up”. It’s all about creating hope and happiness, coming together, etc. despite the adversity. Spring festivals celebrate everything now being OK - they’re not about hope or putting in the effort to pretty up the darkness: there’s no need to hope or to decorate when you’re surrounded by new life.

So at Christmas, you have people coming together, being happy in the face of hardship; goodness despite the bad. That’s love story material.

Easter, you’re enjoying how great things already are, nature’s handing you life and beauty. There’s no adversity to overcome. Nice, but it’s not much of a story when happiness is in no doubt. (And there’s less impetus to find a mate when you’re knee-deep in offspring).

Christmas is more inherently love story-y than Easter.